The heart is the seat of true saving faith. "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness." (Rom. x. 10.) A man may believe that Jesus is the Christ, as the devils do, and yet remain in his sins. He may believe that he is a sinner, and that Christ is the only Saviour, and feel occasional lazy wishes that he was a better man. But no one ever lays hold on Christ, and receives pardon and peace, until he believes with the heart. It is heart-faith that justifies. The heart is the spring of true holiness and steady continuance in well-doing. True Christians are holy because their hearts are interested. They obey from the heart. They do the will of God from the heart. Weak, and feeble, and imperfect as all their doings are, they please God, because they are done from a loving heart. He who commended the widow's mite more than all the offerings of the wealthy Jews, regards quality far more than quantity. What He likes to see is a thing done from "an honest and good heart." (Luke viii. 15.) There is no real holiness without a right heart. The things I am saying may sound strange. Perhaps they run counter to all the notions of some into whose hands this paper may fall. Perhaps you have thought that if a man's religion is correct outwardly, he must be one with whom God is well pleased. You are completely mistaken. You are rejecting the whole tenor of Bible teaching. Outward correctness without a right heart is neither more nor less than Pharisaism. The outward things of Christianity,--baptism, the Lord's Supper, Church-membership, almsgiving, and the like,--will never take any man's soul to heaven, unless his heart is right. There must be inward things as well as outward,--and it is on the inward things that God's eyes are chiefly fixed. Hear how St. Paul teaches us about this matter in three most striking texts: "In Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision; but faith that worketh by love."--"In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature."--"Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the commandments of God." (1 Cor. vii. 19; Galat. v. 6; Galat. vi. 15.) Did the Apostle only mean in these texts, that circumcision was no longer needed under the Gospel? Was that all? No indeed! I believe he meant much more. He meant that true religion did not consist of forms, and that its essence was something far greater than being circumcised or not circumcised. He meant that under Christ Jesus, everything depended on being born again,--on having true saving faith,--on being holy in life and conduct. He meant that these are the things we ought to look at chiefly, and not at outward forms. "Am I a new creature? Do I really believe on Christ? Am I a holy man?" These are the grand questions that we must seek to answer.